Harry Potter and the Last Scions
by Lameth Mornefea
Summary: Chap.2 online. The final battle between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort is nearly at hand, six years after Harry first heard about his archenemy. Fullscale fan novel set after HBP.
1. Master and Apprentice

**Disclaimer - **I don't own Harry Potter. He's not a house-elf. By the way, he's book series, three movies (soon to be four) and a character, but he isn't a person, and I don't own slaves either

**Spoiler Warning - **This fic will be relying heavily on all six published Harry Potter books, as well as miscellaneous information taken from J-K Rowling's own website. It is going to thoroughly spoil the book series for you, with a special mention for **The Half-Blood Prince** ; given this begins mere days after HBP... ;-)

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**Harry Potter and the Last Scions **

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_Chapter One_

_**Master and Apprentice**_

It was the dead of night, and chilly mist drifted over a dirty river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks. An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water, and the only signs of life were two hooded figures who were progressing in silence to the top of the river bank, where a line of old railings separated the river from a narrow, cobbled street. The houses that loomed over the two figures were in a poor state ; built of age-worn bricks, their windows were dull and blind in the darkness.  
"What are we doing here, mother ?" the taller of the two figures whispered under his hood. "This place looks filthy and miserable."  
"You had better get used to the place" his mother whispered in reply. "If you are going to be with him for some time, you will assuredly be seeing a lot of this place."  
"Just because he lives here does not mean we can't move someplace else" the young man made waspishly.

To which the woman chose not to waste her breath answering ; the river bank was steep, and they still had some way to make before they would slip through the railings and enter the small town proper.  
Moments later, they reached the only lit house in the cobbled street known as Spinner's End.

"Pitiable" the young man let as his mother knocked on the door. "Not even the Weasleys would want to live in such a hovel, and that's saying something."  
The woman shot a warning look at her son from under her hood but did not retort : the door was creaking open, letting out a shaft of trembling firelight. A small, bald man with watery eyes appeared behind the door, looking quite frightened.  
The young man sneered.  
"On second thought, the place looks perfectly appropriate for the person you wanted me to meet, mother."  
"Quiet, Draco !" the woman fired back, suddenly looking scared, before she faced the small man. "Wormtail, is he here ?"  
"He asked me to let you in, said he'd be back soon, Mrs Malfoy" Wormtail replied, looking uncomfortable. "Shall I ?" and he stepped aside from the entrance, motioning for the two Malfoys to step inside.

Narcissa and Draco Malfoy removed their hoods as they entered a tiny sitting room, which had all the looks of a dark padded cell. The walls were completely covered in books, most of them bound in old black or brown leather. A threadbare sofa, an old armchair and a rickety table stood grouped together in a pool of dim light cast by a candle-filled lamp hung from the ceiling. There were three glasses and a bottle of elf-wine on the table ; while the Malfoys removed and hung their cloaks, Wormtail took to filling two of the glasses and handed them to Narcissa and her son once they had sat down.  
"Make yourselves comfortable, Severus said he'd be here presently" Wormtail made, looking a little scared as he spoke the name.  
"Severus ?" made an astonished Draco. "Severus Snape lives here ?"  
"Assuredly he does" Narcissa Malfoy replied as Wormtail was disappearing from the sitting room.  
"I won't be staying at this place !" the young man said angrily.  
"Perhaps you would rather be back at the mansion waiting for the Aurors to come and capture you" his mother shot back, now clearly annoyed. "I know the place looks miserable, but at least you'll be much safer here than you would be anyplace else."  
"And what if the Ministry knows Snape lives here ?"  
"They do not, or else I would be a fool to stay here, would I not ?" made the quiet voice of a man.  
"Severus…" Narcissa Malfoy made, turning in the sofa to look at the man who had just spoken.

Where the two Malfoys sported fair hair and an appearance of nobility, Severus Snape was a hook-nosed man with a sallow face partly covered by two curtains of greasy black hair. Back when Draco Malfoy had been at Hogwarts, he had played the part of the sycophant but now that he saw him again, and discovered the place where the old head of house Slytherin lived, Draco Malfoy had to admit he was a little disgusted by the man.  
And the man seemed to be aware of the fact.  
"Appearances can be deceptive, Draco" Snape said with a sneer. "Where an impressive-looking person fails, a more ordinary-looking wizard will be doing the real work."

Draco reacted as though he had been slapped in the face. He opened his mouth to retort – but he couldn't, and he felt his face burning with shame as the implications of the sallow-faced man's words sank in. Days before, Draco Malfoy had held Albus Dumbledore at his mercy, with nothing to stop him from killing the Hogwarts headmaster – nothing but himself. Malfoy had been boasting in front of his intended victim about how Severus Snape had played no part in the plan that was to bring Dumbledore's death. But Draco had not been capable of casting the killing curse that would finish off Dumbledore, and it had been Severus Snape himself who had fired the _Avada Kedavra_ Malfoy had not been capable of casting.

There was a moment of awkward silence, during which Snape helped himself to a glass of elf-wine, which he raised to his lips without toasting.  
"So" he began when he lowered his glass, a sneer on his face, "So. I think you wanted to ask something of me, mister Malfoy."  
"Yes" Draco spat angrily. "I want to live someplace else than here. This is miserable !"  
"This is the place the Dark Lord saw fit for you to inhabit" Snape replied, all traces of his sneer gone, his face now showing anger. "If you happen to disagree with his choice, then by all means leave. There is much I have to do this year, and I am already losing enough time with Wormtail without having to bear the burden of yet another sorry excuse for a Death Eater !"  
"Don't you dare insulting me so !" Malfoy flared. "Don't even _think_ about comparing me with that cringing bit of filth !"  
"Oh." Snape's upper lip was curling. "I am so sorry. I beg your pardon for allowing myself to compare you with Wormtail" and he gave Draco a mocking bow. And he resumed talking, silkily. "I had almost forgotten that he, unlike you, did kill the person he was ordered to."

It was as though Snape had just slapped Draco hard in the face. The pale young man looked as though he would attack his former mentor, until –  
"Oh, you do not imagine how much I would like you to", and there was a dangerous glimmer in Snape's eyes.  
"Severus !" called Mrs Malfoy's horrified voice.  
"Narcissa" came the reply, "your sonfaces no dangerfrom me for so long as he does not try anything stupid. I am not happy with the Dark Lord's decision to place Draco in my care, but I am not foolish enough to disobey him, nor" and his gaze went from one Malfoy to the other, "are you, unless I am terribly mistaken."  
Narcissa Malfoy looked as though she wanted to say something in reply, but she bit back her words. Her eyes were shining with barely-held tears.

Draco, however, was not as shaken as she was.  
"You know why I am not going to leave this place on my own" he said hotly. "Or why I'm not going to make you pay for what you've said. You know as well as I do that if I did just that, my parents would be as good as dead !"  
"That they would be" Snape made in a curt voice. "However you do seem to have love for your parents, which makes me confident you will be following the Dark Lord's orders, and mine."  
"Follow your orders ?" The young man was as angry as he had been moments before. "What makes you think I am going to follow your orders ?"  
"Because the Dark Lord wishes it to be so." Snape's lip curled once more. "And because I will not be asking from you anything you do not have the courage to do."

This quenched Draco's anger at last. It had been the third time Snape had mentioned the young man's failure at killing Dumbledore, and the repeated references to a still-painful past finally chipped away Malfoy's defences.  
"I couldn't bring myself to do it" he said with a heavy voice. "You know I couldn't. I am no killer." He looked at his mother with pleading in his eyes. "You had told me he would do it if I couldn't… And I really couldn't ! I mean, I spent weeks and weeks dwelling on that thought, the thought the Dark Lord wanted me to become a murderer – and the more I thought about it, the more certain I grew I wouldn't be able to kill him."  
"Which certainly turned out to be the truth" Snape interjected with undisguised contempt.

But Draco was not adressing him. His full attention was on his mother, and he was crying openly, without shame.  
"Believe me. I knew that the Dark Lord had threatened to kill you both if I didn't bring about Dumbledore's death.  
"And it's not because I loved the man that I didn't want to kill him !" Draco added, a bit of his anger back in his voice. "But" and he lowered his eyes, "Dumbledore was right about me. I'm not a murderer. I'd do many things for father, I'd do many things for you… But I could not kill. At least, I could not kill one of us…"  
Tears were now welling out of Narcissa Malfoy's eyes too.  
"Draco…" she whispered. "My son…"

The moment was broken by Snape's cold laugh.  
"Ahh… Draco… Not a murderer, not even on the Dark Lord's orders, hmm ?"  
"Severus, please" Narcissa pleaded. "No more."  
"More you son will hear. Refusing to murder someone when ordered to by the Dark Lord means betrayal" the man said icily. "Even though Draco did find a way around his qualms – me."  
Snape shot Draco a disgusted look.  
"You went on with your plan anyway, knowing that I would be there to step in where you would fail, did you not ?"  
"The Dark Lord would have killed my parents if I hadn't !" the young man shouted.  
"He would also have troubled himself with setting your father free had you done all that was expected from you" and it was Snape who was angry this time, as angry as he had been when Harry had called him a coward for fleeing Hogwarts, after he had killed Dumbledore. "But no, you did not, and instead you counted on me to do your dirty work, and did not even pause to think how much it would jeopardize my position. Do you realize that the Dark Lord was more than happy to have a spy within Hogwarts, and would have loved to be still enjoying the services of a reliable agent inside the school, especially now that it has been made vulnerable by Dumbledore's death ?"

Malfoy looked at his former teacher, dumbstruck.  
"Well, maybe you are beginning to" Snape made in a bitter voice, "but you certainly did not when it still mattered. You have ruined an important part of my usefulness to the Dark Lord, and I am not about to let you forget it."

This time the moment of silence was not awkward. It was heavy.

"Severus" Mrs Malfoy's broken voice eventually made, "do you think there is still a chance to set Lucius free ?"  
To which Snape replied with an unemotional voice :  
"That, Narcissa, will depend on how well your son performs the mission I will be training him for."

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**A/N** - This story has been no less than three years in the making, and has considerably changed since I first set out to work on it. Of course, **Order of the Phoenix** and the **Half-Blood Prince** meant considerable changes to my plot (especially the latter... I had not been too bad at guessing what would come to pass in OotP, but have been completely taken by surprise by HBP )  
The plot has been entirely laid out, and now I'm writing the story itself ; the key chapters are ready to be posted, but as for the others... '  
Also, I hope the English language is not being butchered in this story ; it happens not to be my mother language ;-)

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	2. Lessons in Manners

**Disclaimer** - I still don't own Harry Potter. They haven't even given me control of Warner Bros. Sad :-(

(Author's notes and replies at the end of the chapter)

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Chapter Two

_**Lessons in Manners**_

It was a perfect day. A perfect sun was rising in a perfect sky, highlighting the perfect flowers in the perfect garden and perfect walls of number four, Privet Drive. The perfectly painted shutters of the owners' bedroom perfectly evaded the hands of the person who held them and perfectly slammed on the walls as they were pushed by a perfect wind, and in an instant Harry was perfectly awakened. He had better be because his Aunt, whose shrill voice was cursing as she pulled back her now less-than-perfect shutters, would likely be coming soon to fetch him and have him prepare a breakfast she would want perfect.  
As a matter of fact, Mrs Petunia Dursley would want everything perfect : she loved her son Dudley, whom she thought to be perfect, and Dudley's perfect girlfriend was staying at the Dursleys' this week, so Mrs Dursley would be going hard on Harry if he spoiled the perfection of the place any further. And he would to her eyes ; it was a certainty, given how fond his aunt was of him.  
Harry put his glasses on his nose and looked at himself in the mirror. The reflection staring back at him was a skinny and short adolescent in his late teens. He had emerald-green eyes and untidy jet-black hair that were one of aunt Petunia's favourite reasons to complain about him (aunt Petunia had many favourite reasons to complain about Harry). On his forehead he could see the end of a thin, lightning-shaped scar. He hastily brushed his hair, fighting a losing battle but managing to hide his scar, which usually served the Dursleys to remember Harry's abnormality.  
And abnormal he was, or at the very least he was to normal people : Harry Potter was a wizard about to begin his seventh and last year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he was already more seasoned than many a full-grown spellcaster. The Dursleys were quite aware of the fact, but they found it shameful and did their best to hide Harry's special abilities to every normal person they knew.

The teenager quickly put on some clothes, and he got to the door. He opened it, and ducked the fist of his aunt's that was aiming at the door. The woman shortly struggled to recover balance, and then she said 'Good morning !' to Harry after her own fashion :  
"Up you are ?" she said in an angry voice. "Then go to the kitchen, and don't you dare and ruin the food ! I want..."  
"Everything to be perfect for Dudley and Clara, I know" Harry replied, bored, as he got past her and headed downstairs.  
How Dudley had managed to find a girlfriend or what she would like he wondered, as his cousin was a essentially a mean, brutish seventeen-year-old who enjoyed nothing more than bullying other people – preferably when there was no risk of retaliation. Dudley knew better than to provoke Harry's anger, and all the more since Harry's seventeenth birthday was approaching, the day all of the Dursleys dreaded : the day on which Harry would be allowed to perform magic when not at school. Dudley was stupid, but he was prudent, when it came to his cousin.  
Harry kept an eye on the bacon while he was getting plates and laying them on the table in the kitchen, wishing he could use magic to speed the cooking : the sooner he was done with the cooking, the sooner he could bolt his own breakfast and return to his room, where he would not have to endure Clara's presence. Not that the girl was bullying him in any way the Dursleys were.  
No, the problem with Clara Chandler was that she had been told (like the rest of the Dursleys' relations) that Harry was a hopeless boy attending St Brutus's Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys, and she reacted to his presence accordingly, doing her best to hide her fear of him (which was to her credit), and usually hiding her fear by thoroughly ignoring his presence, going so far as hardly ever replying to him, and never looking at him. Of course, Harry was used to the Dursleys acting as though he weren't there – he had had months to practice being ignored – but it _was_ depressing to see another Muggle (what wizards used to call normal people) who was not a Dursley behave with him no differently from what the Dursleys did. _Birds of a kind_ Harry mused bitterly as he ate his breakfast. But then, it wasn't really Clara's fault if she behaved the way she did with Harry. Had the Dursleys told her the truth – _she'd have thought they were either pulling her leg or needing a psychiatrist_ Harry reminded himself with a scowl. _Muggles don't believe that magic exists, remember ?_

Harry quickly washed his plate and then started for his room, getting away from the kitchen (and from his uncle, who was now having breakfast and reading his newspaper there) and wishing he were back in his bedroom at the top of the-  
Crash !  
He hadn't been watching where he was going, and he'd ran into-  
"Can't you watch where you're going ?" said a very angry Dudley. Harry and his cousin were about the same size, but Dudley was a lot bigger than Harry was, as well as a consumate boxer who'd won three inter-school championships in a row.  
Harry didn't want to pick up an argument with his cousin, and even less in front of his girlfriend – Clara had shown up at the top of the stairs, and her green eyes were surveying the scene. He tried to move by Dudley's side, but his cousin roughly shoved him backwards, so that Harry crashed into the wall behind him.  
"What did you do that for ?" Harry said angrily as he drew himself back up.  
"To make you apologize" his cousin replied. "Father and mother taught you better manners than what you're showing."  
"That's because they knew it'd be hopeless to try and teach you, Dudley" Harry retorted.  
Dudley went red in the face.  
"You- you-" he stammered.  
"Me" Harry said mockingly. "Harry Potter, you know, your cousin who's been living here for nearly sixteen years. Didn't they introduce him to you ?"  
Dudley launched himself at Harry, intent on punching him, and the young wizard dodged ; he stuck out his leg, and Dudley crashed on the floor, which left no one standing between Harry and his room save for a Clara who quickly pressed her slender frame against the door opposite Harry's bedroom's. The young wizard ignored her and walked into his room, slamming the door behind him.  
One year ago, Harry would have paid dearly for what happened at the foot of the stairs, but with only a fortnight until his seventeenth birthday, he was confident Dudley's parents wouldn't try and punish him. They'd be afraid he took it upon himself to return the favor once he came of age. Of course, they had been afraid he might do something terrible to them ever since Harry had shown up at their door…

The Dursleys had not been waiting for Harry at King's Cross when the Hogwarts Express had reached the station. The year's end had come earlier than it was expected ; it had even been too early for the fifth and seventh year students to have taken their exams before the school was closed. And so Harry had come back from school on a day when the Dursleys had not expected him to, and the only people he knew at the train station were wizards.  
Mrs Weasley had offered him to stay at the Burrow for the holidays, a prospect that had seemed to please Ginny a lot, and an offer Harry had thought tempting. But then what Dumbledore had reminded him and the Dursleys before taking him away from Little Whinging the year before had come back to his mind : until he turned seventeen, he would be protected from Voldemort while he stayed at the Dursleys'. A protection he would not be enjoying at the Burrow – he'd be endangering the Weasleys instead.  
His friends – and especially Ginny, Ron and Mrs Weasley – had been quite disappointed by his decision ; Mrs Weasley had even gone so far as saying she and her husband would protect him. It had been hard to speak to her so harshly, but he had asked her to imagine, for an instant, what she would do if Voldemort himself came to call. Only then had the Weasleys relented, and had they reluctantly agreed to take Harry back to his aunt and uncle's.

Vernon and Petunia Dursley had not understood what was befalling them when Harry had rung the belldoor, and they had found him with trunk and owl waiting to be let inside, not until Harry had patiently reminded them that Professor Dumbledore had asked them to take him with them until he came of age. He had also – much less patiently – reminded them that they would never had said 'No' to his former Headmaster face-to-face.  
And so the Dursleys had taken him back into their household when Dudley wasn't even back from Smeltings yet, and the three, then the four of them had been living a tense cohabitation, all of them looking forward to the day when Harry would be gone forever.  
In the mean time, Harry had no intention to spend more time with the Dursleys than was strictly necessary. And since, with no homework to do for the next year and no clues on how Voldemort's protections could be undone, he had very few ways of spending time when at the Dursleys', he was spending a lot of his time outside, walking the streets of Little Whinging and (he would have never bet a single knut on his ever doing so) he took time to engrave the town where he had spent so much of his unhappy childhood in his mind. At times he chastised himself for being stupid to feel attachment to the little suburban town… But after all, this _was_ where he had been a child, back in a time when he believed there was no such a thing as magic, back when he accepted the lie his aunt and uncle had told him, that his parents had died in a car crash ; back when there were no worries about Voldemort…  
For Lily and James Potter had not, like the Dursleys had pretended for ten years, died in a car crash. They had been killed by Lord Voldemort, one of the most powerful Dark wizards in history ; they had died to stop Voldemort from killing him, Harry, even though he had just been a baby. Harry and Voldemort were bound by a prophecy ever since before he was born, a prophecy that said neither of them could live while the other survived. To be murdered, or to become a murderer, such was Harry's fate. In a sense, it was only normal that people should be afraid of him : he was a marked man, and death would be a very real part of his life.

Harry left his bedroom and went back downstairs as quietly as he could ; he was going outside, going to try and forget his worries under the sun. Such bright days had become rare for more than a year, ever since Voldemort had come out in the open, since the Dementors had left the prison of Azkaban to join Voldemort. Dementors were dark, terrible creatures which fed on happiness and the other good emotions people could feel – be they magical or Muggle. They robbed you of all the good feelings you had and forced you to relive the worst moments of your life. At first, the Dementors had made Harry think that he was weaker than most of his friends, for he had been the only person who collapsed and fainted in their presence when the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been hosting the terrible creatures ; but there were few people who had such terrible memories as Harry, few people who were made to remember the murder of their own parents like the Dementors had made him remember.  
Nowadays, there were Dementors swarming all other Britain, leeching the happiness out of people and breeding ; this was what had caused the gloomy weather that had lasted for more than a year now. They were rare, the days like today, when people could simply walk under the sun and enjoy being bathed by its rays, forgetting how unhappy the times were.

Harry wandered for a few moments, not really intent on going anywhere in particular. He was simply enjoying his last days of peace until he came of age. When he turned seventeen he would be allowed to do magic like any other adult wizard, and then he would be free to pursue his goal : retrieve the Horcruxes, the trophies in which Voldemort had embedded parts of his soul, making himself deathless ; and then, comfront and kill Voldemort himself. Until then, he was intent on living the rest of July as peacefully as was possible.  
Which was not the view his cousin Dudley had on things, as he realized as he took a turn to come face to face with the big blond teenager, who was no longer in the company of a girl ; he'd probably left his girlfriend back at the Dursleys'.  
"I knew I'd be able to find you on your own" Dudley said with a nasty expression on his face.  
"Well, I don't really make a secret of my walking around Little Whinging, now, do I" Harry replied pleasantly. "So, why did you want to meet me, dear cousin ?"  
"I've been thinking of reminding you a few manners before you left" and Harry could see that Dudley was alone, with a threatening look on his face.  
Harry felt annoyed as he watched him closing the distance between them.  
"So, this is what 'Big D' is reduced to doing" Harry scoffed, employing the nickname Dudley's cronies usually gave their ringleader. "You won't take me in front of your parents, so you wait until you're well away from them. They won't know what their 'Dinky Duddidums' is capable of doing, that way."  
"Shut up, you !" Dudley shouted back. "You're not the one who's having a laugh today, it's us !"  
"You know, Dudley, we might find ourselves alone in the next fortnight" Harry replied nastily as he clearly reminded his cousin his magic would soon be unrestricted. "What do you think will happen when I can, if you and your friends have given me reason to ?"  
"You're not frightening me" Dudley made angrily. But Harry could see that Dudley was, in fact, quite afraid of him, and if Harry wanted to avoid a violent comfrontation with him, he only had to scare him even more.  
"Oh, well, I was already going to kill a man this year" Harry said casually (which was not far from the truth, as he'd certainly be trying to kill Voldemort). "I suppose I can do you for a warm-up" and he put his hand inside his pocket, where he was keeping his wand, and began to caress it under the fabric.

At these words, the boy facing Harry stopped.  
"But…" made a panicking Dudley, "But… You wouldn't… You couldn't… I mean, you can't !"  
"Don't try to tell me what I can do or can't do, cousin" Harry made dangerously – and this time, it was he who took a step towards Dudley. "You know I'm not going back there, like I've told your parents. So it's not like I exactly care about them expelling me, now do I ?"  
"I'll… I'll tell Mum and Dad if you try to do... To… I-"  
"You do that" and Harry turned his back to his cousin and returned to his walk, leaving behind him a terrified Dudley. Of course, his cousin was bound to tell his parents what had transpired between them, and there would be a very tedious, very tense conversation at Privet Drive. But Dudley's parents would not dare and take out their anger at Harry. They were afraid of him too.

Harry's steps took him further away from Privet Drive, and as he walked, he couldn't help but feel uneasy. He had been threatening Dudley much like people he hated could have. Draco Malfoy, who'd been Harry's arch-enemy at Hogwarts, would certainly have bullied people the way Harry had just bullied his cousin. Severus Snape, who had been Harry's least favourite teacher, and who Harry now hated, had made scaring people a hobby, and it was a pleasurable one to the hook-nosed man.  
Severus Snape… For six years, Harry had been forced to endure him as a teacher. Snape was far from being fair, and he had loathed Harry from the beginning, trying his best to make him feel miserable during each of his lessons, and doing his utmost to make Harry expelled from his school. Snape had hated Harry's father, James, and he had also hated his friends, Remus Lupin, who had been Harry's teacher during his third year, and Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, whom the Dementors had been looking for during the same year, and who had died a year ago in a battle with some of Voldemort's most faithful followers, wizards belonging to the circle known as the Death Eaters.  
But Harry, though he had been loathing Snape for most of his six years at Hogwarts, had not come to hate the man because Snape had hated his parents. No, what had given birth to Harry's current feelings for the man was the fact Severus Snape had been one of the people Albus Dumbledore, the late Headmaster of Hogwarts and Harry's mentor, had trusted the most. Severus Snape had been thought to have redeemed from his days as a Death Eaters, and everybody on Dumbledore's side had believed him to be a spy who kept an eye on Voldemort for them.  
And then, on the night when Harry and Dumbledore had been retrieving what they had hoped to be one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, Draco Malfoy and a group of Death Eaters had managed to corner Dumbledore at the top of the Astrology Tower ; and Malfoy had threatened to kill Dumbledore, but he had not been capable to. And then, Severus Snape had come. And he had not fought the Death Eaters. Instead, when the Death Eaters had told him to finish what Malfoy could not, he had raised his wands, ignored Dumbledore's plea, and had killed the old wizard with a look of hatred and revulsion Harry would never forget.

Harry had had more time than he'd wanted to have to dwell on Dumbledore's death. He had been remembering it often when he was alone ; he relived it in his nightmares ; he had been thinking about it every time he thought about the Horcruxes – Dumbledore had been terribly weakened on the night he had faced Snape, because he had drank a terrible potion to retrieve what had turned out to be a fake Horcrux, a decoy left behind by somebody whom Harry did not know, and whom he and his friends had not been capable of identifying. He only had the thief's initials, R.A.B., to try and locate the lost Horcrux as fast as he could, before…  
Well, before Voldemort caught up with him.  
And the dark wizard was bound to. Sooner or later, he would be seeking Harry, and coming to kill him.  
Harry had to destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes before that comfontation.

The young wizard's steps had taken him to a park he had often visited a couple of years ago ; he had been spending much time there in the evenings, dwelling on Voldemort's return. It was a place where he'd used to come when he needed to think and, even by the last weeks' standard, Harry was doing a lot of thinking this morning.  
It was still early, and the park was almost deserted. So it came as a surprise to Harry that the bench on which he usually sat was occupied by someone – and it came as a further surprise that he knew the person sitting there, her face in her hands, and her shoulders bobbing as she sobbed : Dudley's girlfriend, Clara.

It felt uncomfortable to Harry, standing there and watching a girl who usually did her best to ignore his presence cry miserably ; it felt uncomfortable to be standing near a person who was related with the Dursleys, but who was in pain, and Harry did not know how to react. He didn't know whether he'd go to her or simply leave, because she might be so scared of him that he wouldn't be doing any good trying to know why she cried – but he didn't have time to dwell on it. Clara had suddenly become aware of his presence, and she let out a squeal of fright.  
"You- you-" she stammered.  
"Me" Harry replied uneasily, before he had an idea – _It's stupid_ he told himself, _but who knows_. "Harry Potter" he said, mocking his earlier reply to Dudley, "you know, Dudley's cousin who's been living here for nearly sixteen years."  
The girl gave what could have been a sob or a laugh.  
"Yeah, Harry Potter" she replied, her voice quavering with tears, "the hardened criminal boy who lives in Little Whinging, the boy whom even our parents fear." And then, bitterly : "the perfect person to comfort me when I'm in such a state."  
Harry couldn't help but laugh. After two years of Dudley and his gang bullying every children and teenager in town, he was still the boy who was supposed to be the most dangerous of the two, when he hadn't so much as lifted a finger against anyone in Little Whinging.  
"Well, we make-do with what we have" he said with a genuine smile. "Not everybody can be my sainted cousin, right ?"  
"I don't want to hear about him !" the girl replied heatedly, which came as a surprise to Harry.  
"What's wrong, then ?" he asked, tentatively coming closer.  
"Stay where you are !" she cried. "I don't need you more than I need _him_ !"  
Harry suddenly felt uneasy. _What does she means_ ?  
"Now go on, and get away !" the girl made, angry between her tears. "Leave me alone ! Go back to your cousin, and be miserable with him, that's what the two of you deserve !"

Harry was shocked by what he had just heard. "Wait a minute" he said, "you mean- you mean you're going out with Dudley but you don't even _like_ him ?"  
Clara put her hands over her mouth, horrified at what she'd just said.  
Harry moved closer to her, and the girl retreated as best she could in the back of the bench, but there was no evading Harry's hands on her shoulders, there was no evading his emerald-green eyes. She shivered at his touch, almost ready to flee him –  
"I'm sorry for you" Harry said sincerely. "I'm really sorry."  
"You… You mean you're not going to tell anyone what I've just told you ?" the girl whispered, looking incapable to believe what she had just heard.  
"Of course I'm not" Harry replied with a small smile. "Why should I make it more miserable for you ?"  
They both stayed silent for a few moments ; and then, the girl leant forward, and Harry caught her in a hug, letting her cry in his shoulder and smoothing her long, blond hair with his hand.

Clara cried for a few more minutes, but she gradually relaxed, and eventually managed to shed her tears. Harry made her talk for a few moments, and the girl told him about how miserable she felt, about why it was she was Dudley's girlfriend when she didn't like him. Her father, it transpired, worked at Grunnings, Harry's uncle firm, and he was looking forward to a promotion ; to this end, he'd been inviting the Dursleys' at his own home several times (Harry could remember such a dinner taking place ten days before, the Dursleys had left him locked in his bedroom while they went to the Chandlers' for dinner), and Clara's father had thought it was a good idea for his daughter to get 'close' the Dursleys' son. She'd been forced into his arms, and she'd been suffering from it. And now, her parents had made her to live with Dudley for a week, and she was forced to endure his pressing manners with her, forced to give in to some of the boy's desires…  
When Dudley had wanted to go for a stroll without her, she'd seized her chance, and come to a place where she could let her sadness loose ; she didn't think that Dudley would be coming to this park without company, and from the look of it, he wasn't seeking company when he had left Privet Drive.  
And so had Harry found her.

"You're still at the Dursleys' for four days, aren't you ?" Harry asked in as neutral a voice as he could manage.  
"I am" Clara replied, keeping her eyes low, not daring to look Harry in the face now she'd told him everything. But she added : "Thank… Thank you very much." She had spoken very timidly.  
The girl left Harry's embrace and took a few moments to erase the traces of her tears.  
"You're going back ?" Harry asked.  
"Well… I have to" the girl said with a weak smile. "If I don't make it appear I'm enjoying my time with Dudley, I'll be in trouble with my father."  
Harry nodded, but he didn't reply anything.  
Clara stood up, and she gave Harry a smile before she turned and began to walk away from the park..  
"Clara, just one thing" Harry called after her, still sitting on the bench.  
"Yes ?" She had stopped and half-turned to look back at him.  
"If you ever need to talk" he offered, "I'm often taking a stroll around Little Whinging. If you want to tell me something, I'll be coming to this park regularly, so we can talk when you need to."  
"Well, thank you, Harry" the girl replied, and she blushed a little. She turned once more, but she did not walk away.  
"You know" he heard her say, "everyone keeps talking about how mean and how dangerous that Harry Potter is…" She turned once more, and gave him an hesitant smile. "I think that maybe, if people got to know you, they'd find out you're much nicer than they think you are."

It was Harry's turn to smile ; but before he could thank her for her words, the girl had left, almost running. A couple of children and their mother were entering the park, and Harry understood Clara's sudden haste to leave : it was better nobody gossiped about he and Dudley's girlfriend talking.

Harry leaned back in the bench, and he thrust his head backwards, closing his eyes and offering his face to the sun. He lay there for a while, trying to empty his mind of all thought, but it was not possible. The children playing in the park were noisy, and he soon got hit by a ball they had thrown. He opened his eyes, searching for the ball, but the children's mother had already picked it up.  
"Now don't go playing anywhere near this boy" she was telling her children off, "this Harry Potter is trouble, and they say he's dangerous."  
"All right, mum" one of the children replied subduedly, while the other looked at him with surprise and fear in his eyes.  
Harry sighed and leant back again, hearing Clara's words once more – '_If people got to know you, they'd find out you're much nicer than they think you are_.'  
_Well, being nicer than the Dursleys or her dad isn't that difficult_ he thought with a sad smile. _Muggles don't have Voldemort and his Death Eaters to set up a standard for their wrongdoing, but some of them certainly don't need such a standard_.  
And it was certainly a bit sad to think that he knew the magic that could get the poor girl away from Dudley with no one even aware that she'd been going out with him at first, or that she'd been forced to. But he wasn't going to run around doing Memory charms every time this sort of problem arose, or any time a bit of magic could easily solve a purely Muggle dilemma. Harry couldn't help but remember the words of Hagrid six years before, when he'd asked him why wizards did their best to remain unnoticed. '_Everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems_' Hagrid had said. Now that Harry came to ponder that question, he could only agree with his friend. _If she'd known there is a magic solution to her situation, Clara would have wanted me to do it_.  
But at the same time, the idea made him feel frustrated. _Why is it that we _can_ do magic if we're never going to use it to help_ ? To know that he was perfectly capable of aiding the girl and that he still was not going to do it, because magic had to remain a secret, was irritating to say the least.  
_Anyways I can't do magic before my birthday ; she'll be long gone before I could do anything_.

The day was growing hotter, and Harry was growing hungry ; he stood up, and began to walk the road back to the Dursleys', and to his lunch.

* * *

**Black Aliss **- Thank you very much for reviewing, I hope this wasn't too disappointing ;)

**Krissygurl** - And thanks for the praise ;) Though whether Snape was or was not acting under Dumbledore's orders I wouldn't be likely to tell this early, hmm ?

To everyone who's reading this, yes, I know I am spending more time than I could have with the Muggle world ;) I assure you there's reason behind the madness And besides, had this been an actual Harry Potter book, there would have been a chapter giving us a quick overview of what had happened in the previous books ;)

I hope this made for an enjoyable read ; the next two chapters are shorter, so they shouldn't take as long to appear online.


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